Airfield to cull endangered gulls in Britain

WARTON, England, June 25 (UPI) -- The British environment secretary gave a military aircraft testing company permission to cull endangered sea birds in Lancashire, officials said.

BAE Systems, which operates the Warton aerodrome, applied for the right to reduce the population of herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls near its airfield because of the danger they presented to aircraft, Britain's The Guardian reported Tuesday.

The gulls are in the Ribble and Alt Estuaries, special protection areas for the birds.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson gave BAE permission to shoot up to 475 breeding pairs of herring gulls and 552 breeding pairs of lesser black-backed gulls, less than 25 percent of the birds' total population.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds fears the ruling could set a precedent for similar culls elsewhere.

"Although we recognize the air safety risk, we believe the secretary of state's conclusion is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of wildlife protection designed to conserve the U.K.'s best wildlife places. We strongly disagree with his interpretation that it is acceptable to lose up to a quarter of a protected site's breeding bird population without it damaging the conservation value of that site. This sets a very worrying precedent for this and similar sites across the U.K.," said Martin Harper, the RSPB's conservation director.